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(NME.tv animation of craziness following Beyonce and Jay-Z's pregnancy announcement)

It's been almost a week since Beyonce announced her pregnancy and nearly crushed Twitter in the process. As the world awaits the arrival of possibly the most hotly anticipated offspring in recent pop-culture history, and speculation about what the baby will look like and how long we have to wait for the his or her first chart-topping album ramps up, some enterprising celeb-watchers have launched Twitter accounts in the famous embryo's name.

Within hours of B's pregnancy reveal at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, handles like BeyoncesFetus cropped on the micro-blogging site, tweeting sassy missives like "Just because you're following me doesn't mean you're gonna get invited to the baby shower." And from his or her pretend front-row VMA seat, BeyoncesWomb gave a little fashion commentary, writing, "Even i can't stand Katy Perry's outfit."

BeyoncesWomb, however, has appeared to have grown tired of the ruse, abandoning Twitter the same day he/she started tweeting. Beyonces1stBaby also lacks the stamina necessary to be a fake social-media savvy fetus, at press time having conked out after just 5 tweets on Aug. 31 (the user did rack up an impressive 763 followers during the brief masquerade).

Other users, though, are super committed to their superstar-embryo persona, detailing their womb-based exploits and explaining how they managed to smuggle smartphones into their megastar momma. BeyJayFetus is already following in Jay-Z's slick mogul footsteps, declaring the launch of AfterBirth Records, typing on both a Blackberry and a soon-to-be-released iPhone 5, and referencing a (hopefully) pretend publicist. The enterprising fake tot, who isn't able to plank just yet, is even championing a new meme: fetusing. All that in-utero posturing is paying off: the account boasts almost 3,000 followers, has been covered by CNN, and gets mentioned by real-life celebrities like The Roots' drummer Questlove. Music journalist, author, and TV host Toure -- who has actually interviewed Jay-Z -- even scored the first exclusive Twit-erview with BJF.

BeyJayFetus, however, has some stiff competition in the race for e-fame in the form of BeyoncezFetus. Although not as social as BJF -- very few retweets, mentions, and conversations with Twitter fetus fans -- the account has racked up more than 5,000 followers. So far, the timeline is a straightforward stack of punny one-liners like "All the single babies - All the single babies - put your hands up" and "Looks like I'm my daddies 100th problem." Unlike BJF, the jokester behind BeyoncezFetus is forthcoming about his identity: the handle is the brainchild of Detroit-based producer/funnyman Eli Daniel, whose other Twitter account, AGuyWithNoLife, has nearly 40,000 followers.

Other users pretending to gestate on Twitter include BeyonceJayFetus (not to be confused with BeyJayFetus) whose snarky witticisms like "Stop. Rubbing. Me," "Suri can come to my parties, I guess," and "#nowplaying "If I Were a Boy" have scored a mention from the New York Daily News and more than 2700 followers. To the apparent delight of about 1100 Twitter fans, BeyonceFetus has a mighty ego ("Waiting for this body to come together. But damn I do look good naked already. Great Legs!") and potty mouth to match.

The aforementioned accounts are rising as the breakout stars in the talking baby bump game, but we've gotta give a special shout-out to Fetus_Knowles, who has been tweeting since last October. The 51-follower-account knocked off the tweets for awhile but reemerged on Aug. 17, a week before B actually announced the news to the world. Hmm ... maybe the unborn megastar really is reaching out.

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Culture Desk is a blog that serves to highlight both local and national stories of interest in the worlds of art, music, movies, TV, theater and more. Most items are written by writers and editors from The Boston Globe arts and culture staff.